Shadows and Strongholds (20 page)

He wanted to go and look at the horses, but for that he had to wait for Joscelin. With the memories of his childhood burned into his brain, he had no intention of wandering off anywhere on his own—even with a dagger at his belt. He knew that Gilbert de Lacy was in Shrewsbury for he had glimpsed his entourage across the Foregate yester eve, including his two squires, now almost grown men. To his great relief and continuing apprehension he had not sighted them today but they were bound to be in the throng somewhere.

'Show me the gold wool.' Sybilla pointed to a bolt of cloth. The mercer lifted it from his shelf and created a fan of pleats on the counter. 'Hawise, this will suit you; what do you think? Good and thick for winter.'

In previous years, the sight of bolts of fabric rowed on the shelves of the mercer's booths at Shrewsbury Fair would have glazed Hawise's eyes with as much boredom as the men's. Today, however, the cloth exuded a fascination. Her fingers itched to pinch and rub; to smooth over cold, glossy silk; to crumple linen and test for softness. 'I like it.' She picked up the end to hold it against herself.

Sybilla considered, and gave a satisfied nod. She gestured to her steward, giving him permission to haggle a price. 'Enough for a dress and a length over for alterations and patching,' she said. 'Now show me that blue.'

Hawise moistened her lips with greedy pleasure as the next bolt thudded on to the counter. This was for her too, and also for Sibbi. She heard Brunin heave a deep sigh and pretended not to hear. He was as bad as her father. Marion watched the mercer's apprentice measure and cut with envious eyes.

'I wouldn't want to wear the gold, or the blue,' she said loftily. They're too dull.'

'For your fairness, perhaps,' Sybilla said. 'But not for Hawise and Sibbi. I was thinking of the light blue up there for you, or that rose-pink.' She pointed out a couple of bolts.

Marion's eyes brightened and she leaned on the counter to scrutinise Sybilla's suggestions.

Sybilla had the mercer bring out his chemise linens for her perusal.

'Finest weave of Cambrai,' the trader said proudly. 'Only shipped in a fortnight since.'

Hawise set her hand beneath the fabric and fancied that she could almost see her fingers through it.

'If you've a bride in the family, it'll be fit for the wedding night,' the mercer said, eyeing the girls. Sibbi blushed and glanced quickly over her shoulder at Hugh, but he was watching the milling crowds. 'And if not, it's still a dainty thing to wear against the skin. Almost as fine as silk, but a deal less costly.'

Hawise willed her mother to be swayed and was delighted when Sybilla bought sufficient for an undershift each.

Finally, when every shelf of the mercer's booth had been inspected and plundered, Sybilla announced that they would visit a cookstall to fortify themselves for the afternoon ahead. Watching Brunin stifle a yawn and unfold himself from his leaning post, Hawise was reminded of one of the rangy stable cats at Ludlow.

'Never mind,' she said with the sympathy of one whose own appetites were temporarily sated, 'you'll get to look at the horse fair soon and we've bought enough linen to make you a new shirt too.'

He gave her a sidelong look in which she was surprised to read irritation. 'I am not a child to be cozened by promises of rewards for patient behaviour,' he said stiffly and turned away with Hugh to forge a way through the crowds.

Hawise gazed after him in astonishment.

'Pay no heed,' Sybilla murmured with a smile. 'No male's temper is proof against accompanying women round the merchants' booths. Why do you think your father has delegated the task?'

Two squires clutching hot pasties eased past the women. One youth was of ordinary looks: brown-haired, snub-nosed and stocky. His companion, however, caused Marion to inhale sharply, and Hawise to stare, her stomach wallowing. He had wheaten hair, eyes of deep woad-blue and features of the kind that adorned her imagination when the minstrels in the hall sang of bold and handsome knights.

His gaze travelled over the women and for one liquefying moment paused on Hawise. Then it moved to Marion, and held for longer. In the instant before the press of the crowds and the angle of direction separated the parties, he smiled and closed one eye in a knowing wink.

'Who do you think he was?' Marion whispered, agog.

Hawise craned back over her shoulder, but to no avail for the young men were already out of sight.

Brunin stared after the squires too, but he already knew their identities. He tightened his fist around the hilt of his knife, reassuring himself with the solid presence of the leather grip, knowing that this time he was not defenceless, but his mouth filled none the less with the bitter taste of fear.

It was late afternoon by the time Brunin was relieved of his duties with the women and was finally able to go with Joscelin to look at the horse fair. Since it was high summer, the latter was set to continue into the late dusk.

Joscelin grinned and slapped the youth across the shoulder blades as they walked towards the lines of tethered horses. 'So how has your lesson in patience been, lad?' he demanded. 'I hope you know your sarcenet from your samite and your twill from your wadmal by now'

Brunin looked pained. 'I do not know about that, my lord, but my brains have certainly gone wool-gathering.'

Joscelin threw back his head and laughed. Brunin laughed too, but the sound had a hollow ring. He was remembering the fear that had jolted through him when he saw de Lacy's squires. He wanted to speak out and rid himself of the moment but, reluctant to sound unmanly, tightened his lips and pressed the emotions down, as if weighting a floating corpse with stones.

Brunin, Joscelin and the Ludlow men set about examining the beasts for sale with as much pleasure and concentration as the women had perused their cloth. And, like the cloth, there were all kinds to consider, from the coarse workaday to the refined and magnificent, and all qualities between.

Joscelin looked in the mouth of one and shook his head at Brunin. 'Teeth have been filed to make it seem younger,' he said.

They moved on from that particular seller and avoided another whose horses had whip scars on their rumps. Brunin admired a large grey stallion with arched crest, rounded rump and restively stamping hooves.

'Ideas above your station,' Joscelin chuckled. 'That's not a training mount, that's a warhorse in every sense of the word. He'd battle you all the way to Normandy and back.'

Brunin had not thought for a minute that he would be able to have the stallion, but it still gave him wistful pleasure to look. A training mount, he told himself and, with an inward sigh, turned from the highly bred beasts to more prosaic fare. Hugh pointed out a handsome chestnut and Brunin tried him, but despite being young, the horse already had a hard mouth and its muscles shivered nervously as if constantly attacked by midges. Joscelin liked the look of an older dun. and the horse was sound of wind and limb, but Brunin was not as enthusiastic.

'It's like women,' chuckled one of the knights. 'Either you want them enough to burst your braies, or they're as appealing as skin on cold pottage.'

Joscelin flashed a smile. 'You can live on cold pottage skin,' he said. ' "Bursting your braies", as you call it, creates more trouble than it's worth.'

Brunin ignored their banter and approached a raw-boned gelding standing near the back of a horse line. It was a bright bay with black mane and tail and its two hind legs were white to the gaskins, making it look as if it were wearing hose. A white blaze straddled its cobby face and slipped to one side, covering one nostril and giving the horse a comical appearance. When he set his hand to its neck, it breathed on him gustily and immediately set about searching his garments as if expecting to find a hidden tidbit.

'This one,' Brunin said.

Joscelin lifted his head from examination of the dun and stared with widening eyes. Hands on hips, he wandered over to Brunin's find. 'Jesu! He looks as if he was made out of all the bits God had left over when he'd finished!' he scoffed. 'Why in the name of St Peter should you want him?'

Brunin flushed beneath Joscelin's scorn, but stood his ground. 'Not all that is plain is dross,' he said. 'He's got a strong back, and his coat's in good condition. See. no mange. And he's young—only about six or seven. He's been well handled in the past too.'

Joscelin arched his brows. 'I am relieved to see you are not a complete fool,' he said. 'A halfwit rather than a lackwit, but he's still a nag.'

'I could try him…' Brunin willed Joscelin to say yes. He could see that the matter hung in the balance, that Joscelin was wondering whether to humour him or have done. Brunin stared at Joscelin and set his jaw. The older man's grey-hazel eyes filled with a smile.

'I once said to Sybilla that you were the most obedient and biddable squire I had ever trained and she replied that one day you would find your feet and surprise me.' He waved his hand. 'Oh, go on. Put your saddle on him.' He turned to the coper who had been watching the exchange with alert eyes and the scent of a sale in his nostrils. The man scuttled with alacrity to help tack the horse up.

'How did you come by the beast?' Joscelin wanted to know. 'I doubt you bred him yourself. No one would be that foolish.'

The coper looked affronted. 'He is a fine beast, my lord. I would have been proud to have bred him, but you are right, I did not. He was sold to me by a knight who owed a debt to the Jews.'

'By a knight… ?' Joscelin stared at the horse in fresh appraisal. Brunin efficiently cinched the girths, working swiftly, horribly afraid that at any moment Joscelin was going to change his mind.

'Yes, my lord. Said he were a destrier, full trained.'

A rude snort erupted from Joscelin's nose. 'If that's a destrier, then I'm a priest's catamite! Good Christ, no one rides a gelding into battle. I've seen better donkeys in my lime!'

Brunin set his foot in the stirrup and swung astride. The horse's head came up and it pricked its long, mulish ears.

'There's a quintain post over there if you want to try your hand with a lance.' The coper nodded obligingly at a short run of churned grass and a post with a crossbar. On the end of the crossbar was a ring fashioned of woven withies. 'Has the lad started tilting at the ring?'

'He has, but he's not having that horse,' Joscelin said.

Brunin drew the bay out of the line and leaned to take the blunted lance that the coper had propped against the side of his booth for clients to use. Brunin was aware of Joscelin shaking his head and looking sceptical, but it only made the youth more determined. He dug his heels into the bay's flanks and urged him towards the quintain run. The bay responded to the lightest touch on the reins and canted his haunches sideways at the dig in the side. His long ears waggled and as Brunin turned him to face the quintain, he felt a ripple surge through the horse.

Couching the lance, Brunin set the gelding at the target and immediately realised what he had found. The bay's stride was short because of the shortness of the run, but smoothly controlled, and he brought Brunin straight as a die to the target. As the youth neatly lifted the ring off the hook, the bay turned away on a right lead and brought them back to the start of the run. Brunin pulled the lance head back to his body and tipped the ring off into his hand. The horse coper waddled up, took it from him. and replaced it on the quintain. Again Brunin made a run and again the horse did everything except put the lance on the ring.

Joscelin rumpled his hair. 'I'm a priest's catamite,' he said softly as Brunin reined about and returned to the line, his eyes sinning.

Joscelin looked in the horse's mouth, sounded its wind, tested its legs. He kept repeating the word 'nag' and 'mule' to himself. Brunin held silent, his throat dry with apprehension. He couldn't say why he so badly wanted the bay, only that it was an instinct that came from the gut.

'How much do you want for him?' Joscelin asked. The coper named his price and Joscelin choked. 'Hell's teeth, I'd expect to get a Spanish stallion for that, not a spavined hobby like this. I tell you what. I'll give you five marks. Take it or leave it.'

The coper looked affronted and said he would leave it; the horse was worth four times that amount.

Brunin knew desperation, but he fought not to let it show on his face. He knew that much about buying and selling. He willed Joscelin not to walk away.

The coper looked round. Other customers had arrived to look at his wares. After a lull in the late afternoon, the evening crowds were beginning to throng the fair while the light lingered—and some of them, made careless by drink, had a lighter grasp on their purses. He named a lower price and Joscelin increased his in the time-honoured fashion. Finally a deal was agreed and a tally stick notched, recording the sale. Brunin's chest swelled with joy and gratitude.

'No, do not thank me,' Joscelin said, holding up his hands. 'I still cannot believe what I have done. And when your father sees what I have bought to carry his son to knighthood, I'll be fried alive.'

'He looks nothing, sir,' Brunin said. 'But that doesn't mean he is nothing. He'll prove his worth.'

'He had better do,' Joscelin said ruefully.

A shout from the quintain caught their attention and they turned to see Gilbert de Lacy's fair-haired squire tilting at the ring. He was mounted on the grey stallion that Brunin had admired earlier and the pair were a glorious sight. Brunin narrowed his eyes and watched the young man perform the manoeuvre with flawless precision. He used thighs and heels to turn the horse, showing off his considerable equestrian skills and muscular strength as he mastered the stallion. Brunin willed the horse to stumble or the rider to make a clumsy mistake, but neither happened.

A smiling Gilbert de Lacy arrived to watch his squire's performance and cupped his hands to shout words of pride and encouragement. The wry humour faded from Joscelin's face, leaving it taut and grim. De Lacy looked up and across. An air-scorching stare passed between the two men.

'Come,' Joscelin said to Brunin, without taking his eyes from de Lacy. 'We are done here and the light's fading.'